To Defy Logic
by EnglandBabe1997
Summary: Pepper muses on Tony and Iron Man. Tony muses on Pepper and their relationship. Short drabble piece. Please read and review xx
1. Pepper

**This is a short drabble piece from Pepper's POV. Please read and review. Sadly, and much to my regret, I do not own the Avengers.**

Pepper Potts loved Anthony Stark with all her heart.

She'd known that for a very long time - and no doubt, with his expansive mind and ego, he knew it too and reciprocated.

But he had a reputation he was supposed to uphold - not that he cared one iota about that.

He thoroughly destroyed it on a semi-regular basis and ripped apart all of the expectations that were put on him whilst somehow still retaining his fragile reputation.  
Pepper didn't know how he managed it. It was a talent of his - something almost unnatural, particularly in comparison to his usual non-existent people skills elsewhere.

But all of them who called him self-obsessed, egotistical, selfish, arrogant, self-centred, the Merchant of _Death_, none of them saw the real him - not even his team; Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov least of all. He didn't trust them not to betray him - the latest in a very long line of betrayals. But Pepper knew him - truly knew him - and knew that the selfishness had been an act for a long time, and whilst the arrogance was mostly real, it was built on years of contradictory advice from his parents about his worth.

Tony was so convinced he wasn't worth anything and she hated it with all her heart. Couldn't he see how many lives he'd changed? How many people he'd saved? Of course he couldn't - they only thing he could see was the blood on his hands and on his suit, reminding him of how much he had to make up for, how much he _needed_ to make up for. He wasn't a superhero - not now, not ever. He thought he was a murderer masquerading as a hero, hiding behind the gold-titanium alloy mask.

She'd tried to change his mind but even she could only do so much, and the second Howard Stark was mentioned - at all - Tony automatically closed up like a clam. Since Afghanistan, and Iron Man, he'd started to let her closer. Before she'd been allowed to tell him when to come into the office (or when he should've turned up) and throw out women in the morning. Now she could tell him what to do with his emotions as well, because for the first time he was showing her them.

She was so proud of him.

And that pride never really went away, even when he got himself shot doing something stupid.

And wasn't that love? Loving someone no matter what stupid things they did - Tony's ideas admittedly more stupid than most.

She just wished that Tony hadn't paid the prices he had. He didn't deserve that - no one had the right to tell him what he did wrong anymore, not when he was trying so hard to fix it.

Pepper only hoped it would be enough.


	2. Tony

**I was in a Tony mood to write, but didn't want to write something new and didn't have time to write something for one of my longer fics (You Watch Me Prowl In The Darkness), so I decided to add this x Please read and review :)**

Tony knows that his relationship with Pepper defies all conventions of a superhero. The girlfriend was supposed to have no idea of his secret identity (she did, as did the rest of the world) and was supposed to be supportive of him saving the world (she was, but she liked to hit him far more than kiss him when he returned home from saving the world, unless he was returning on a stretcher).

He knows he's lucky that he's still got her, first of all after all these years. In his twenties, when she'd started working for him, he'd pulled stunts that gave normal people heart attacks and spent every evening going out partying. Within two works of becoming his PA, she'd seen him naked more times than she had clothed and appreciated it less each time. She'd seen him pull all the stupid stunts with the models he brought over and this wasn't even counting the Jacuzzi incident none of them wanted to remember.

Both of them agreed that most of his 'terrible twenties' were not to be remembered, for the physical and emotional health of everyone present.

To be honest though he hadn't been much better into his thirties, still going on his crazy inventing binges and going for days without sleep until he crashed unconscious on the floor on his workshop. The first time Pepper had caught him doing that she'd almost called for an ambulance, stopped only by JARVIS. When he woke up he knew that if they'd known each other for longer than three weeks she would have slapped him.

He still drunk far too much and sleep around and treated her far too badly, refusing to sign things and turn up to meetings. She in turn spent her life going to the meetings in his stead and quickly learnt how to forge his signature.

And then, in his forties, he became Iron Man and if that wasn't going to drive her away, what was?

She didn't go.

She stayed around, worrying and slapping him whenever she worried him. She shouted whenever he took a nuke into space and welcomed the rest of his superhero team into their home, directing them to the fridge and bathrooms as she did so.

Tony was _so_ in love with her. No matter what he did she always forgave him, having seemingly endless patience for his antics. He wasn't the easiest person to be around, not by a long shot, and she stayed anyway.

They'd been together for thirteen years, even if not always _together_ and, for Tony Stark, that was a damn sight longer than anyone else.

Even if their relationship was the strangest thing some had ever seen (and they had the word of the _Avengers_ on that_, _who saw impossible things on a daily basis), they didn't care. Both of them liked to defy the word impossible.

They had each other, and that was all of them had ever really needed.


End file.
